“Day out with Baby” Survival Basket & 2 Tutorials

As many of you know, I recently got out of the Navy and moved to California to be with my husband, Paul. While he’s at work, defending our country and such, I’m at work at home defending my sewing machine from 2 vicious cats. Ok, they’re actually not vicious at all, but try to be when thread is involved. Anyway, this past week I had an additional challenge other than surrendering to the BRP (Belly Reduction Program for those of you who have just tuned in). I needed to get a baby gift together for an upcoming baby shower. I usually like to make a small quilt or playmat, but decided to try something different this time. I decided to make a “Day out with Baby” Survival Basket for the Mom-to-be. It turns out the expecting couple is pretty musical so the theme for the shower was everthing “Rockstar”! Look at this adorable idea the hostesses came up with for placemats for this “Rockstar” shower…old records with a cute pink paper in the middle for added decoration!

She even turned 3 of them into a dessert stand to hold these adorable record cookies from a local bakery.

Nice job Katie & Amanda! Okay, back to the survival kit. Last weekend while visiting Paso Robles, CA I stumbled upon a really cute fabric store called Birch. Paul allowed me to peek inside prior to our lunch date. I know…he’s a keeper! I decided to go in and see what fabric I could find for a “Rockstar” themed baby shower. I stumbled upon these super adorable fabrics and added in a strip of yellow that I already had in my stash. I found the idea for these “day out with baby” bags on pinterest involving pre-made drawstring bags filled with items to help mom survive the outing. The bag include items like diapers, wipes, change of clothes, changing pad, etc. I decided to give this a go and stitched up a few bags in no time out of some leftover fabric I had in my stash.In each bag I put 1 onesie, a bag of wipes and 2 diapers. Betsy Ross gave me the cute idea a few baby showers ago to sew fabric into pre-folded cloth diapers to be used as burp cloths. Why make a pretty burp cloth when all that’s going to end up on it is baby’s spit up you ask? Because mom’s need any help they can get to brighten up even the less glorious moments with baby…so I’ve heard. Don’t these just bring a smile to your face? I really wanted to share these tutorials with you because they are super easy and can be stitched up in 1 rainy day at home!

Materials needed to make 1 bag measuring 9″ x 8″ when finished:

(Adjust below measurements as necessary to make a larger or smaller drawstring bag)

Fold your 9″ x 21″ piece of fabric in half with right sides together. The fold will be on the bottom, creating the bottom of the bag. Iron flat.

Take a ruler and measure down 2″ from the top of your bag on both sides and draw a line with your water erasable marker or pencil/chalk. Flip over and repeat on the back side.

Stitch up both sides of the bag, starting at the bottom and all the way up to the line you just drew. Don’t forget to back stitch at both ends!

Iron a 1/4″ of fabric down around all of the remaining unstitched area starting with the sides and then folding and ironing over the top.

Next fold down another 3/4″ from the top (should line up with your 2″ line drawn in step 2) and iron. Pin in place, being careful not to pin the back of the bag to the front while doing so.

Stitch down about 1/16″ from the fold closer to the bottom of the bag. This will create a finished seam to hold your drawstring in place. Be careful not to stitch the other side of the bag to the side you are sewing. Note: Ensure your tension is good for your bobbin thread since that is the thread that will be showing once we flip the bag right side out.

Repeat for the other side of the bag as well. Both sides should look like this.

Flip right side out and marvel at your completed bag measuring about 9″ x 8″. Now, we have to make the drawstrings if you don’t have a piece of ribbon handy. If you do have ribbon handy skip to step 15.

If you don’t have ribbon handy, this is where your 2 pieces of fabric measuring 2″ x 34″ come into play. First, fold over the short sides 1/4″ in from the edge and top-stitch in place.

Now, we are going to iron both strips in half length-wise.

Then, open it up and iron both long ends in toward the crease you just made.

Next, fold in half one more time along the first crease and iron down.

Now, you should have 2 strips all folded and ready to be sewn closed.

Top stitch these strips along the open end to secure the folds in place. Once complete you should have 2 sturdy strips.

Place your safety pin at one end of one of the strips and string it through the opening we stitched along the top of the bag.

Loop it through the other side as well until you have both ends on the same side of the bag.

Repeat for the other drawstring strip, but start on the opposite end to ensure the ties end up on the opposite side as your first strip.

Fill with goodies and cinch closed. Viola! A super cute drawstring bag, ready for any adventure!

Materials:

Pre-folded cloth diaper

1/4 yd of fabric

Scissors/Rotary Cutter

Iron & Ironing Board

Ruler

Color Coordinating Thread

Pins

Instructions:

Pre-wash your cloth diaper and iron if desired. Measure length of diaper to know how long to cut your fabric. Add 1″ to the diaper length. Mine was 19″ so that makes 20″.

Cut your fabric 6″ x (diaper length + 1″). Mine was 6″ x 20″.

Fold and iron down 1/4″ all the way around your strip of fabric.

Center the fabric onto the diaper and pin in place.

Top stitch fabric down to the diaper. I recommend starting about 1/3 of the way down one of the sides and not at a corner. This will prevent you from finishing your stitch along a corner edge.

Marvel at your creation. This guy went from cloth diaper to fancy burp cloth in 60 seconds!There you have it! 2 easy tutorials to put together a Baby Survival Basket. All you need to complete the gift is a cute basket of any design that will fit all of your bags and burp cloths! Best of luck to the parents-to-be and may this basket make any adventure with baby a little easier!

Hi! We are "Dear Abby" and "Betsy Ross", two sisters, staying connected through blogging about sewing, cooking, crafting and silly life stories about kids! We're just "stitchin aweigh" through the adventures of life!

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